Victoria Kent Siano

* 1889 (Málaga)† 1987 (New York) Spain

Fields of activity: lawyer and politician

Author: Elisa Chilet Rosell

EnglishSpanish

Biography

She
was a Spanish lawyer and republican politician. One of the first
three female Members of Parliament in the Spanish Courts, together
with Clara Campoamor (with whom she had a notable debate about
passing women’s voting) and Margarita Nelken. She was born to a
well-to-do and liberal family, had private tuition and later moved to
Madrid to enter the Central University (Universidad
Central) where she
studied Law. She was the first woman worldwide to intervene before a
war council and achieve the acquittal of her defendant, a member of
the Republican Revolutionary Committee. She dignified the life of
prisoners in jails. She devoted her life and work to fighting to
improve the living conditions, not only of women, but of anyone
living in conditions of inferiority: prisoners, orphans and people in
exile. She never defined herself as a feminist, although she
supported equal opportunities for men and women.

Chronology

1917:
She moved to Madrid where she studied Law in the Central University.

1924:
She graduated as a lawyer, being the first woman to enter the Bar
Association during Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship.

1930:
She achieved fame as the first women to intervene before a war
council. She defended Álvaro de Albornoz from the Republican
Revolutionary Committee for his involvement in the republican revolt
in Jaca before the Supreme Court of War and Navy. She had her
defendant acquitted, which brought her public recognition.

1931:
She was elected as a Member of Parliament by the Radical Socialist
Party (women could be elected but could not vote). She was appointed
as the General Director of Prisons until 1934. Following the example
of Concepción Arenal, she worked to improve prisons, with the
criteria of rehabilitating the prisoners: she removed chains and
punishment cells and created the Women’s Prison Department for the
Women’s Prison and the Institute of Penal Studies (Instituto
de Estudios Penales).

She
held intense debates about women’s voting with the Member of
Parliament Claro Campoamor. Kent opposed the idea, arguing that it
was an inappropriate measure, since women of her time were not yet
autonomous enough to vote freely by themselves, and that they would
let themselves be guided by their fathers, husbands or confessors, in
such a way that if they voted en masse it would threaten the Republic
and conservatism would win again.

1933:
She was not elected in the elections (the first in which women could
vote). She left the prison management after a misunderstanding with
Álvaro Albornoz (whom she had defended before the Supreme Court of
War and Navy) who believed that the reforms proposed by Kent were too
humanitarian.

1936:
She was elected a Member of Parliament again, this time as part of
the Republican Left (a party that grouped together the right-wing
parties that had been defeated in the 1933 elections).

1937:
At the height of the Spanish Civil War she travelled to France as
Secretary of the Spanish Embassy in Paris. In this position, she gave
refuge to Spanish boys and girls who were leaving the country as the
nationalist army was occupying the territory and sending them to
refugee camps, and helped Spanish refugees to go to America.

1940-1944:
During the Nazi invasion of Paris, Kent decided not to flee France
and to live under a false identity, Madame Duval, working and writing
on behalf of Spanish exiles.

1948:
She went into exile in Mexico, where she undertook intense
intellectual activity, in universities and prisons.

1950:
She travelled to New York as a UN official. She managed the magazine
Ibérica,
which published news from Spain, for republican exiles in the United
States. Two years later she left her position, claiming that it did
not meet her expectations, as she could not act on her own
initiative; it was purely “bureaucratic”.

1977:
Victoria Kent returned to Spain, for the first time since 1937 after
40 years spent in exile, but she decided to return to New York.